Virginia Changed the Rules on Tenant Payment Fees. Here's What Landlords Need to Check.

Quick Answer: As of July 1, 2026, Virginia landlords covered by the VRLTA can't charge tenants a payment processing fee that exceeds the landlord's actual third-party cost, and they must offer at least one payment option that's completely free. The rules come from HB 1005 and SB 313, which amended §§ 55.1-1204 and 55.1-1208 of the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. If every way your tenant can pay rent carries a fee — or if a fee isn't spelled out in your lease — that's where you're exposed.

We got a call in July from an owner in Vienna who'd been self-managing a townhouse for six years. Same tenant, no problems, rent paid online every month through a portal he set up when he started. His question was simple: had anything changed that he needed to worry about?

Yes. His portal charged tenants a flat fee on every payment method it offered, and his lease didn't mention the fee anywhere. Both of those are problems now.

Virginia has been busy. There were several landlord-tenant changes that took effect on July 1, 2026, and the payment fee rules are the ones getting the least attention — probably because the 14-day pay-or-quit change sucked up all the oxygen. But this one touches every landlord who collects rent electronically, which at this point is nearly all of them.

What actually changed on July 1, 2026?

Two identical bills, HB 1005 and SB 313, were signed in April 2026 and took effect July 1. They amended two sections of the VRLTA — § 55.1-1204, which governs the rental agreement and payment of rent, and § 55.1-1208, which governs security deposits.

Here's the practical version:

• You have to accept rent and security deposit payments by check and money order. You can still offer an online portal — you just can't make it the only door.

• You have to offer at least one payment option that's completely free of fees.

• Any payment processing fee you charge is capped at your actual out-of-pocket cost charged by a third party to process that payment. No markup.

• You have to provide a written receipt for rent paid by cash or money order.

• You can't charge a general maintenance or repair fee on top of rent. Repair charges have to tie to actual damage caused by the tenant's own violation of the lease or the VRLTA.

There's exactly one carve-out and it's narrow. Owners of four or fewer rental units, or who hold a 10 percent or smaller interest in four or fewer units, aren't required to accept debit and credit cards. That's it. Everything else — the check and money order duty, the receipts, the fee cap, the maintenance fee ban — applies whether you own one house or a thousand.

Does this apply to me if I use a property manager?

Yes, and this is worth being clear about because we've seen owners assume otherwise. A property management company acting as an agent for a covered landlord is bound by the same rules the landlord is. You can't outsource your way out of the statute, and neither can we.

It also means the answer to "is my setup compliant?" isn't something your software vendor can give you. Which brings us to the part that actually matters.

Where's the real gray area?

The fee cap says you can't charge more than the actual cost charged by a third party to process the payment. That language is clean when your processor bills you $2.95 per transaction — you can pass along $2.95 and not a penny more.

It gets murky fast when your software bundles processing into a monthly subscription.

A lot of property management platforms don't hand you a discrete per-transaction charge. Payment processing is baked into what you already pay for the software. So when a tenant pays by card and gets charged 4 percent, what exactly is the "actual out-of-pocket expense charged by a third party" for that transaction? If you can't produce a number, you can't demonstrate you're inside the cap.

Some vendors compound this by describing the fee as the property manager's revenue rather than a pass-through of their own cost. If your vendor's own documentation frames it that way, it cuts hard against the "actual cost only" framing the statute requires.

We've been working through exactly this in our own business, and we've had an attorney involved. We're not going to stand here and tell you that you can always do X and never do Y, because the honest answer depends on how your specific platform structures its fees.

What about renaming it a technology fee?

It's come up. Property management companies in other states have rebranded payment fees as "technology fees" or "software fees" to sidestep processing-fee language.

Be careful with that. Virginia's regulatory environment on landlord fees has tightened three years running, and a substance-over-form analysis is going to see through a relabeled processing charge pretty quickly. If a fee is going to survive scrutiny under a different name, it has to be tied to genuine independent value the tenant actually receives — not the same charge with a new label on it. That's a conversation to have with a Virginia attorney before you change a single line in your lease, not after.

What should I check this week?

Four things, and none of them take long.

1. Open your lease and find every fee. Payment fees, late fees, anything else. Is each one spelled out clearly in the document the tenant signed? A fee that appears for the first time at checkout on a portal is not disclosed.

2. Confirm your tenant has a genuinely free way to pay rent. Not a cheaper way. Free. If ACH is free and cards carry a fee, you're fine. If every option costs something, you have a problem today.

3. Look at how your payment platform structures its fees. Ask your vendor for itemized per-transaction cost data. If they can't produce it, that's your answer about how defensible your current fee is.

4. Make sure you can actually accept a check or money order, and that you have a receipt process for money orders and cash. A lot of remote owners quietly stopped taking paper years ago.

If you're charging fees and you're not certain where you stand, get a Virginia attorney to look at your lease and your whole collection process. This is a cheap review relative to what a fee dispute costs.

Why does a small fee rule matter this much?

Because fee violations don't stay small. They're per-tenant and per-month, and they sit in a statute with tenant remedies and attorney's fees attached. An improper fee of $35 a month across a two-year tenancy isn't a $35 problem. And if you own several units, it isn't one tenancy.

The other reason is that this is not the last change coming. The pay-or-quit notice period moved from 5 days to 14 days on the same July 1 date, which means any old 5-day form served after that is procedurally defective and can get an unlawful detainer dismissed. There's more arriving in 2027, including a 90-day notice requirement for rent increases and itemized statements on nonpayment notices.

Being a landlord in Virginia right now means keeping up with this stuff. That's genuinely the hardest part of self-managing in 2026 — not the tenant calls, not the maintenance. It's that the rules move and nobody sends you a notice when they do.

Watch the video

We recorded a short walkthrough of these payment fee changes. It covers the same ground in about three minutes if you'd rather watch than read.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Virginia landlords charge tenants a fee to pay rent online in 2026?

You can, but only up to your actual out-of-pocket cost charged by a third party to process that payment, and only if the fee is disclosed in the lease. You also have to offer at least one payment option that's entirely free of fees. If every method you offer carries a charge, you're not compliant.

Do these rules apply to small landlords who own one or two rentals?

Almost entirely, yes. The only exemption is for owners of four or fewer rental units, or a 10 percent or smaller interest in four or fewer units, and it excuses them from one thing: accepting debit and credit cards. The fee cap, the fee-free option, the check and money order requirement, and the maintenance fee ban apply to every VRLTA landlord regardless of size.

What if my property management software bundles processing into my subscription?

That's the genuine gray area, and it's the most common version of this problem in Northern Virginia. If there's no discrete per-transaction charge from a third party, it's difficult to demonstrate that a fee you pass to a tenant sits inside the statutory cap. Ask your vendor for itemized cost data and have an attorney review your setup before the next rent cycle.

Can I still charge tenants a monthly maintenance fee?

No. As of July 1, 2026, a general fee for maintenance or repair of the unit charged on top of rent is prohibited. You can still charge for actual damage that resulted from the tenant's own violation of the lease or the VRLTA — but that means documented, tenant-caused damage, not a recurring line item.

Do I have to accept a paper check now?

Yes. Covered landlords must accept payment of periodic rent and any security deposit by check and money order in addition to any electronic method. You can keep the portal — you just can't require it as the only way to pay. And a money order or cash payment triggers a written receipt requirement.

What happens if I've been charging a non-compliant fee since July?

Talk to a Virginia attorney about it now rather than waiting for a tenant to raise it. VRLTA violations can carry tenant remedies, damages, and attorney's fees, and the exposure compounds monthly across every affected tenancy. Correcting it proactively puts you in a much better position than being caught.

If you own a rental in Northern Virginia and you're not sure whether your lease and your fee schedule hold up under the new rules, send us the address and a copy of your lease. We'll tell you what we're seeing and where we'd look first. No pitch — we've just spent a lot of time in this particular weed patch lately and it's an easy thing to get wrong.

This article is general information for Virginia rental property owners and is not legal advice. Virginia landlord-tenant law changes frequently — confirm current requirements with a Virginia attorney before making decisions about your lease or fee structure.